I love my hairdresser, but I'm afraid he's wrong about this one.
A while back he told me that breastfeeding caused hair loss. Another mother recently repeated a similar statement from her hairdresser, who had suggested that the only remedy was weaning.
I had pretty dramatic hair loss starting at about three months, but after a weird six months or so in which the new growth seemed to always want to stand straight up on my head, it pretty much returned to normal.
This connection between hair loss and breastfeeding never really made sense to me, since the hormones involved in lactation (oxytocin and prolactin) don't have anything to do with hair growth (as far as I knew).
So, here's the real scoop, exerpted from kellymom's page on this topic.
Many new moms notice hair loss - sometimes quite dramatic - around three months postpartum. This is a normal - and temporary - postpartum change that is unrelated to breastfeeding.
Following is how the hair growth cycle works:
All hair has a growth phase, termed anagen, and a resting phase, telogen. On the scalp, anagen lasts approximately 3 years, while telogen lasts roughly 3 months, although there can be wide variation in these times between individuals. During telogen, the resting hair remains in the follicle until it is pushed out by growth of a new anagen hair. -- from Telogen Effluvium by Elizabeth CW Hughes, MD
Normally, around 85-95% of your hair is in the growth phase at any point in time, but the hormonal changes during pregnancy stimulate an increase in the percentage of hairs in the growth phase. As a result, many women enjoy thicker hair during pregnancy, as more hairs than normal are growing and fewer than normal are resting/shedding.
With the birth of your baby (and the hormonal changes that accompany birth), a larger number of hairs than normal enter the resting phase. Since the resting phase is followed by hair shedding (and regrowth), new mothers will experience greater than normal hair loss once the resting phase ends.
Postpartum hair loss commonly starts at around three months after birth. The amount of time between childbirth and the onset of shedding corresponds to the length of the resting phase of hair growth (between 1 and 6 months, with an average of three months). The hair loss can seem more extreme if your hair grew much more than normal during pregnancy, or if you have long hair. Most women will return to their usual hair growth cycle within six months, or between 6 and 12 months after birth.
Kellymom goes on to note that excessive hair loss can also be caused by hypothyroidism and iron deficiency anemia (two conditions that are pretty common in the postpartum period), so see your doctor if you're concerned. A simple blood test can determine if you have either of those conditions, and they're relatively easy to treat.
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